Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Armed with a computer model in 1935, one could probably have written the exact same story on California drought as appears today in the Washington Post some 80 years ago, prompted by the very similar outlier temperatures of 1934 and 2014.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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People in 36 of Mississippi’s 82 counties may not be able to buy health insurance through the new federal online marketplace when it starts enrolling customers in October. Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney says two insurers have announced offerings so far, planning to serve 46 counties.

Unless more companies sign up or the existing companies expand their plans, consumers in the remaining counties won’t be able to buy health insurance through the online exchange. Coverage under those policies begins Jan. 1.

“I don’t know what to tell you about the other 36 counties,” Chaney told The Associated Press in a phone interview this week. “You’re just out of luck.”

That means they won’t be able to use federal tax credits offered to consumers with incomes of between 133 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s up to about $46,000 for an individual and about $94,000 for a family of four, with those at the top end getting little or no subsidy.

People who don’t buy insurance are required to pay a $95-a-year penalty starting in 2014. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department couldn’t immediately say Thursday whether people would be penalized in counties without offerings.

My reading of the statute is that this should have little effect on the penalties that Mississippians face under Obamacare, since the state’s refusal to establish an exchange has already exempted 128,000 residents from penalties under the individual mandate, and all Mississippi employers from penalties under the employer mandate.

But assuming the IRS gets away with illegally offering Obamacare’s penalty-triggering “premium assistance tax credits” in states that have refused to establish exchanges, Mississippi employers cannot be penalized for failure to provide “affordable” health insurance to residents of those 36 counties because without any exchange at all, those residents will not be able to receive the tax credits. But employers could be penalized for failing to provide those residents “minimum value” coverage–if a firm employs even a single person in one of the other 46 counties that do receive such a tax credit.

Individuals would still seem to be subject to the individual mandate as they otherwise would. But without an exchange, fewer of them would qualify for the unaffordability exemption from the individual mandate, because there would be no “annual premium for the lowest cost bronze plan available in the individual market through the Exchange” with which to calculate whether they are eligible for that exemption. Of course, the federal Department of Health and Human Services could just throw residents of those counties a hardship exemption.

It’s not just that President Obama is asking the NBA to lend its credibility to the least popular thing this side of Tim Donaghy. Obama has spent his political career trying to take more money from high-income earners like NBA players, executives, and owners. ObamaCare is one of his great successes in that effort. Another is the recent fiscal-cliff-avoidance deal. Yet Obama isn’t satisfied; he wants to take even more of their money.

NBA players, owners, and executives are extremely talented and productive people. They create lots of jobs. They earn lots of money because they make other people happy. For this crime, they already pay more in taxes than almost anyone, and pay more than they receive from the government in benefits.

Yet President Obama seems to spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to take even more from them. And then he turns around and asks them to help him sell his train wreck of a health care law. Chutzpah.

Before the NBA casts its lot with ObamaCare, every NBA player, executive, and owner should ask their accountant exactly how much this president has cost them. I’m looking at you, Lebron.

At The New Republic’s blog, Jonathan Cohn grumbles about the insolence of ObamaCare opponents:

Across the country, Republican state officials vilify the law…In Washington, Republican members of Congress are trying to undermine the law by denying funding for outreach and implementation. According to a report by Elise Viebeck in The Hill, a few Republicans have suggested they won’t help constituents having trouble enrolling in the new insurance options. And, as Anne Kim and Ed Kilgore from the Washington Monthly recently reported, they’re even refusing to work with churches on crafting a bipartisan fix to what looks like a predictable, if inevitable, glitch in the law’s drafting.

Nobody expects Republicans to praise Obamacare or to give up efforts at repeal, assuming they feel strongly about it. But, as long as Obamacare remains on the books, don’t even its critics have some obligation to enforce the law in good faith? Shouldn’t they be helping constituents without insurance to take advantage of the law’s new options?

Let’s first examine the absurdity of Cohn complaining that “Republican members of Congress are trying to undermine the law by denying funding for outreach and implementation.” Wait, you mean ObamaCare didn’t include enough funding for its own implementation? How does the fault for that lie with congressional Republicans (who opposed this law), rather than congressional Democrats (who enacted it with inadequate funding)? Doesn’t the need for additional funding mean ObamaCare will cost more than supporters claimed when they enacted it? And wasn’t that an accusation they denied? Shouldn’t Cohn be criticizing Democrats for that, too? Does Cohn really mean to say that legislators have a duty to vote to fund a law they want to repeal? Does he also believe legislators have a duty to fund “outreach and implementation” for anti-sodomy laws? What about voter-ID laws? Marijuana prohibition is horribly under-funded; think of all the users who don’t go to jail. Do legislators have a duty to ensure those laws are fully funded and implemented? Do they have a duty to fix any glitches in those laws?

As for Cohn’s question, “as long as Obamacare remains on the books, don’t even its critics have some obligation to enforce the law in good faith?” Any middle-school civics student could tell him the answer is “no.” In our system of government, the executive branch enforces the law, not the legislature, and not the citizenry. So with respect to the federal government, that means there are exactly zero ObamaCare opponents who have a duty to enforce this law. The Supreme Court has clarified that nobody at the state level has a duty to enforce it, either. Given that many opponents (including me) believe ObamaCare to be an unjust law, we could go farther and say critics have a moral duty to resist or disobey it. Finally, it’s hard to take Cohn seriously when Jonathan Adler and I are trying to get the Obama administration to enforce the law in good faith, yet Cohn is trying to stop us.

The latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll provides a fascinating look into how factors other than the content of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act affect people’s views of that law.

Kaiser asked respondents their views of the PPACA, alternately describing it as “ObamaCare” and “the health reform law.” Here’s what happened:

Among Republicans, calling it “ObamaCare” caused the share reporting an unfavorable view to rise from 76 percent to 86 percent (+10 percentage points), with no discernible change in the share reporting a favorable view.

Among independents, calling it “ObamaCare” caused the share reporting an unfavorable view to rise from 43 percent to 52 percent (+9 percentage points), with no discernible change in the share reporting a favorable view.

Among Democrats, calling it “ObamaCare” produced no discernible change in the share reporting an unfavorable view, but caused the share reporting a favorable view to rise from 58 percent to 73 percent (+15 percentage points).

A few conclusions can be drawn.

The PPACA remains unpopular among Republicans, independents, and the public overall (see below).

Republicans dislike the law more than Democrats like it.

A substantial share of both the opposition to and support for “ObamaCare” is driven by partisanship or opinions about President Obama (which are pretty close to the same thing), rather than the content of the law.

Partisanship is a larger factor in Democrats’ support for “ObamaCare” (15 percentage points) than in Republicans’ or independents’ opposition to it (10 and 9 percentage points, respectively).

Dropping the term “ObamaCare” causes Democratic support for the law to fall by 15 percentage points.

This is huge: all of Obamacare hangs on the outcome…If successful…[either] case will bring Obamacare’s Exchange engine to a screeching halt…In short, this is for all the marbles.

Last week, the Halbig plaintiffs asked the U.S. district court for the District of Columbia to speed things up. Though the IRS doesn’t have to respond to the Halbig complaint until July, the plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment asking the court to rule on the case before the end of 2013. According to the plaintiffs:

Plaintiffs need a determination on the merits far enough in advance of January 1, 2014, to allow them to conform their behavior to the law. Because the validity of the regulation turns on a purely legal question and the administrative record is closed, Plaintiffs are moving for summary judgment now, and hope thereby to avoid the need to litigate a motion for preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order at the eleventh hour.

So far, officials in 34 states have elected not to create insurance exchanges under the law where the uninsured can go to purchase affordable or subsidized health care coverage. And only 20 states and the District of Columbia have agreed to expand Medicaid programs for the poor and disabled…

Earlier this year, Cannon published a lengthy Cato “white paper,” a handbook of sorts for gumming up the works. Entitled “50 Vetoes: How States Can Stop the Obama Health Care Law,” the report urges governors and state officials to refuse to set up insurance exchanges in their states and to refuse to opt into an expanded Medicaid program for the poor…

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, and a board member of Enroll America, complained…that Cannon’s handbook was designed to “throw sand into the machinery of state implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”